Huge Meeting in Mexico Protests Against Nazi Massacres of Jews

Indignation at the Nazi massacres of Jews in occupied Europe was voiced by thousands of Mexicans assembled here last night at the Palacio de Bellas Artes, the celebrated Mexican national theatre.

The protest meeting, first of its kind in Mexico, was arranged by the principal political and labor organizations in the country. The prominent speakers who condemned the Nazi persecutions and massacres of Jews included Antonio Villalobos, president of the Mexican Government Party; Vincente Lombardo Toledano, leader of the Mexican Labor Movement and president of the Latin-American Confederation of Labor; Felix F. Palavicini, former Mexican ambassador to Argentina who spoke in behalf of Mexico’s intellectual world; General Felix Ireta, representing the Mexican Army; Congressman Felix Diaz Escobar, the president of the Mexican anti-Nazi Committee, and other prominent Mexican personalities.

Prof. Maximo Jose Cahn, eminent Spanish-Jewish philosopher, speaking in behalf of the Jewish Community, described the plight of the Jews under Nazi domination. A message from the Jewish Central Committee was read in which the representative body of the Jews in Mexico expressed its gratefulness to the Mexican political parties and personalities for arranging the impressive protest meeting. Expressing confidence in the victory of the democracies over the Nazis, the message emphasized that the Jews of Mexico are confident that the Mexican Government will severely suppress the “fifth-column” activities in the country which find their expression in anti-Jewish propaganda.

Jacob C. Potovsky, one of the leaders of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers Union of America, who was invited by the organizers of the meeting to address the audience in behalf of American labor, emphasized that the defeat of Hitlerism would bring freedom to humanity. National Mexican music was played at the meeting by the band of the Ministry of Navy.

Represented in the group which organized the protest meeting were the Government Party, the Mexican Workers’ Confederation, the National Farmers’ Confederation, the National Intellectual Workers’ Federation, the Mexican Youth Federation, the Workers’ University, the National Anti-Nazi Committee, the National Athensium of Arts and Science, the Miners’ Union, the Federation of Unions of Government Employees, and various other groups.